Working Group Statement on NATO

April 4, 2009 is the 60th anniversary of the foundation of NATO, the imperialist organisation which is under the leadership of the USA.

NATO was created allegedly inÂ order to confront the USSR, the first workers’ state in the world, which withstood and confronted successfully the attack of the Nazi plague, giving a new impetus to the struggle for national and social liberation all over the world.

At the same time, the capitalist governments of the USA, Canada and Western Europe needed a military political mechanism to repress and intimidate the peoples. This need was served by the foundation of NATO.

Its goal was to confront and obstruct with the use of arms any type of progressive changes. For that reason, but also for ensuring the interests of imperialism, NATO supported the reactionary regimes and dictatorships in Greece, Turkey, Spain, Portugal, while it played a leading role in the partition of Cyprus.

Its action was based, and still is based, on anticommunism and all types of fabrications and provocations against the revolutionary communist movement and peoples’ struggle for peace, social justice, socialism.

NATO’s history in its role as world “sheriff” of imperialism is linked to violations of international law. It is marked with the blood of the victims of its direct or indirect interventions throughout the world.

Especially nowadays the character of NATO as a military mechanism, as a basic tool of imperialist action inside the member states as well as outside their borders for the establishment of the “new world order” has been fully revealed.

The argument that NATO was an allegedly defensive treaty is a lie and empty propaganda aiming at concealing the real goals and role of this aggressive organisation. Since the Summit in Rome in 1992 and in 1999 in Washington, NATO adopted a new doctrine that provides the possibility of intervention in the whole world, in the name of new threats, under the pretext of combating terrorism, the protection of natural resources’ flow etc. During this period NATO moved on with its new structure which is based mainly on the aggressive “rapid deployment forces.”

The USA along with the European Union have organised the dissolution of Yugoslavia and in this way NATO triggered off the war in Bosnia, mounted the dirty war against Serbia, with the 78 days of bombing in 1999 that levelled the country to the ground and led to NATO and EU occupation of Kosovo and its “independence” from Serbia.

The wars of NATO in the Balkans and Afghanistan, the participation in the war in Iraq, the interventions in Pakistan, in South Asia have proved imperialism’s brutality. NATO was always the main supporter of Israel in its aggressive policy againstÂ the Palestinian people and other Arab peoples. NATO also played, and still plays a role in the siege imposed on Gaza. Contrary to peoples’ will, NATO attempts to draw into its web Ukraine and Georgia. It encourages in every possible way their armament, supporting the most reactionary circles of these countries. The imposition of a “new world order” has as an enemy the states and the peoples that resist imperialist aggressiveness. Therefore, NATO escalates the armament and develops new threatening weapon systems, such as the so-called antimissile shield, in Poland and the Czech Republic.

NATO’s program “Partnership for Peace” promotes its expansionÂ to new member countries. It was implemented in all former socialist countries of Central and Southeastern Europe that later became members of the NATO. Nowadays, pressure is exerted on the government of the Republic of Cyprus to join this program and to be integrated into Euro-Atlantic plans. The government and the people of Cyprus strongly resist because approval would give a license for the invasion of the Turkish army in Cyprus conducted with the approval of the USA and the NATO, as well as acceptance of the de facto occupation of part of the island by Turkish troops, which continues until this day.

Imperialism-USA-NATO-EU are closely related concepts. Despite their contradictions and their antagonisms, both EU and USA turn against the peoples, since the EU in the Euro-treaty considers NATO as its main pillar and fully accepts its role. The EU army is linked with the NATO, and France is returning to the latter’s military arm.

On the 60th anniversary of its establishment, NATO attempts to present itself as “innocent as a dove,”Â with an unprecedented propaganda of distortion of history, through the media manipulated by the system, and through universities funded by the research programs of NATO etc.

NATO appears to be all-powerful, but it is not. The world economic crisis of capitalism strengthens imperialist aggressiveness while at the same time it shows its limits. Imperialism cannot exist without controlling new markets, without broadening its influence, without capturing and oppressing other peoples, along with the peoples of its own states, for the expansion of monopolies’ activity.

There is a counterweight to NATO. It’s the anti-imperialist forces all over the world: the global anti-war, anti-imperialist, peace movement that in coordination with the workers’ movement and the other social movements of women, the youth, the defenders of nature and natural resources and the movements of solidarity. They struggle against imperialism and demand from the collaborators of the “predatory alliance” the immediate dissolution of the NATO.

This is the “one-way road” for the peoples. We have to stop the imperialist aggressiveness, contribute to the defeat of imperialism. ThisÂ constitutes the prerequisite for a peaceful world.

Nowadays, the verbal condemnation of NATO’s crimes and threats is not enough. There needs to be a wide anti-war, anti-imperialist peace movement that will rally the workers, the youth and broad social and popular forces.

The peoples through their struggle can actually set obstacles to the criminal plans of the NATO and the other imperialist forces and win.

The Communist and Workers’ Parties call the peoples to intensify their struggle:

Against the military expenditure. Prohibition of NATO programs at the universities. The immediate return of all troops and other missions that participate in imperialist operations outside our countries. The emancipation of our countries from the imperialist wars, occupation of countries imperialist interventions. The removal of all foreign military bases from our countries. The disengagement of our countries from the NATO. The dissolution of NATO.